Sunset
by idioticonion
Summary: Robin experiences an instant attraction to a stranger she meets outside a bar. Surprise crossover.
1. Sunset

**Sunset**

Robin glances over and she sees him.

Blonde hair, cheekbones so sharp you could cut yourself on them. Eyes like chips of ice beneath brows drawn together in a frown. He's ducked out of the bar for a cigarette, which is clamped firmly between his lips. Wreathes of smoke curl from his nostrils and drift away on the hot, evening breeze.

"Hey," she says, smiling.

He grunts, not looking up at her at first. He's handsome enough to maybe think she's not worth his time and she prickles at the implied rejection. But, it seems, he was simply lost in his own thoughts because after a short, satellite-delay of silence between them he looks up at her.

Then he smiles. His teeth are very white and his shirt is very red. His eyes are large and wide and expressive, challenging yet full of dancing humour.

"Hey yourself," he says, with a wolfish grin.

And Robin feels that drag of attraction, that secret burning thread that pulls her to him, despite the knowledge that he's a bad boy with a bad-boy's smile.

She wants to use a line on him and she can think of a thousand clichés that would work, would seem ironic enough and maybe test his sense of humour but her words fail her. Her mouth is a little too dry and suddenly she doesn't trust herself to speak.

He saves the day by offering her his packet of Marlboros and giving her a light.

The inhale their respective nicotine fix in silence before he turns to her and says, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

She can't help it. She laughs. His accent is… well, all accents sound weird to her. She always has a tough time placing where people are from.

"You wanna go somewhere… worse?" He shrugs his bony shoulders. He's tall and lean and light on his feet when he takes he hand. The brush of his fingers, the contact of skin against skin, it sends an electric thrill through her.

"Sure, she says, with a gulp, wondering what the hell she thinks she's doing. But her heart is racing way too fast and the adrenaline is zinging through her veins and when he looks at her his eyes crinkle and he licks his bottom lip.

"Delicious," he says, as they walk, eating up the sidewalk, streets and the avenues flowing under their feet until she's so turned around that she doesn't quite know where she is.

As if you could ever really get lost in New York.

"Who are you?" She asks him. She doesn't ask his name - that would be the wrong question entirely. And she's not even sure that she doesn't know the answer already. He fills her head, her mind, floods her senses, and she's only known him a few minutes.

He stops suddenly and she stumbles against him. He catches her nimbly around the waist and once again she sinks into those blue, blue eyes - her soul is caught on something sharp, wriggling around to get free like some corporeal thing. But she doesn't want to get free. His touch is cool against her body, his hands are gentle, caressing her back where only thin straps criss-cross her bare back. She can feel his fingertips, the very slight pressure he exerts as he pulls her in for a kiss.

She wants to ask where they are going.

She wants to ask what the hell he thinks he's doing trying to get to the blue line with her.

She wants to beg him to do something indefinable, to do something that she doesn't even know she wants until, unexpectedly, he does it.

He bypasses her mouth, instead pressing his lips to her throat, a cool kiss that quickly becomes pressure, pain, agony.

There's a second when she could have screamed.

He pulls away, his needlepoint teeth gleaming wickedly under the streetlight. His face is a twisted, nightmare visage. His lips are decorated, ruby-red with her blood.

"I'm Spike," he says, with her death in his eyes.

*--*--*

"Hey, where's Robin?" Barney asks, pausing at the top of the steps before descending down into the bar, following the others. "She said she'd wait outside for us?"

They sit at their usual table and wait for her but after an hour they get pretty hungry and decide to head out to eat.

Barney leaves her four messages on her voice mail, but doesn't really worry unduly.

He tells the others that he hopes she's hooked up with some guy who's worth her time, that's all.

But inside, he's just so damn sick that she never chooses him.


	2. Green

Green

It's the colors that Robin misses the most.

Her night vision is awesome, but when she looks down at her feet, at the grass, as she walks through Central Park, all she sees is washed out grey; pastels, lights and darks.

She used to love bright colours. Pea green. Lemon yellow. Royal blue. Now it's the textures she appreciates because her skin is so much more sensitive. Her sense of smell is so much more acute too.

She can smell body odour now, even on clothes that have been laundered. She had to go out and buy new clothes, which, admittedly, was not the greatest hardship. But the hours she keeps do limit her options in retail shopping, especially as it's summer, with the longer daylight hours.

Luckily it's easier to keep her job. She always slept during the day so her body clock was backwards already. At least this way she doesn't have to take the sleeping pills anymore.

Robin wears a new, diamond-pattered Argyll sweater. It happens to be her favorite combination of green and black, but it's the touch of the soft wool against her skin that made her buy it.

The biggest surprise, apart from the night vision, is discovering how her friends really feel about her. Ted is still a little bit in lust with her. She can smell the pheromones. Marshall, despite his protestations, also desires her. Lily's frustration and fluctuating moods are more easily readable with Robin's heightened senses.

Barney is in love with her.

And that's why Robin decides not to bite him, not to sink her teeth into him and make him hers. At least not yet.

She wouldn't have known how to react to the revelation if she'd still been alive. She's even less sure of herself now that she's a vampire.

- -

Lily knows there's something wrong with her best friend. Robin's always had a huge appetite, but she never has dinner with them any more. The excuses about her sleeping pattern really don't hold true - not as this seems to be a more recent thing. Recently, Barney was eating a steak so rare, he claimed that you could hear it mooing. When he held up the plate to Robin, Lily swears she saw her friend turn green.

So either Robin's pregnant or she's anorexic (damn TV shows and their unreasonable pressure on women!) or…

Or Lily doesn't know what "or"…

Which is kind of scary.

The other day, Lily and Marshall had sat opposite Barney and Robin in their regular booth at MacLaren's and, while Lily had been watching carefully, Robin had leaned over toward Barney and had taken in a deep breath, her eyelids fluttering closed. Marshall had flashed Lily a guarded look of triumph.

Barney-and-Robin watching had become a regular pastime for them. Watching two people, so obviously meant for each other, circling around and oblivious, getting nearer and nearer, it was totally delicious. Seeing Robin sniff Barney so blatantly, this was a new move! And as much as the couple were rooting for their friends fledgling (or even pre-fledgling) relationship, they also kind of wanted it to draw out. It was so romantic. So entertaining.

But still, Lily knows that there's something wrong, something up. She decides to ask Robin about it, straight out, one night when Marshall's working on an evening conference call with Barney (one that Lily's pretty sure isn't just a euphemism for just drinking beer on the roof).

Robin sits there in silence for a moment, then assures her that there's nothing wrong.

"You look pale," Lily tells her.

Robin laughs. "Tanning intervention, remember?"

Lily tilts her head. Not only does Robin look pale, her eyes are weirdly red. Bloodshot. "Are you okay?" She asks, leaning forward to get a closer look, her hand brushing over Robin's knee.

And then Robin's eyes, her wide blue eyes, they pull her in and Lily feels as though she's falling, falling, as though down a very long mineshaft, and there is nothing at the bottom to cushion her when she hits-

- -

When Ted comes home from a late meeting with a new client, Robin's tying back her hair with a green ribbon and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Hey," he greets her, dragging his feet as he makes his way towards his bedroom. He's just so jealous of Robin right now. Okay, so she works weird hours, but she only works about four of them a day - Ted feels lucky if he isn't working ten or twelve. It's a hell of a lot of effort, running your own business, way more than he ever expected it to be.

Yeah, he really envies Robin.

Right now it's past midnight, and Robin looks positively glowing and ready to party. All Ted wants to do is hit the hay but he can feel Robin's imminent invitation to go down the bar before she even utters the words.

"I'm thirsty," she complains.

"Call Barney," Ted snaps, more harshly than he intended.

"Already tried," Robin replies with a huff. "He's busy."

"Too busy to meet you at the bar?" Ted blurts. This is new. Barney would drop practically anything to spend time with Robin. In fact, it's pretty sweet how transparent his friend is in his adoration for her.

"Okay, I'll go over to GNB and meet Barney and Marshall after their meeting," Robin says with a quirk of her lips and a roll of her eyes. "But I am real thirsty."

"You want quick drink before you leave?" Ted says, wandering past her on his way to the kitchen. He wishes he could go with her, on her late night jaunt to a dive bars in the financial district. He bets there will be karaoke and shots.

"Oh Ted," Robin says with a wicked grin. "Oh Teddy boy... I thought you'd never ask!"

Then all Ted sees before the lights go out is her sharp smile and all that he hears is his own last, desperate gulp of air.

- -

Marshall and Barney drink a quarter bottle of scotch between them to celebrate the deal they've just closed. Robin watches them through the window. Heights hold no fear for her now. She can cling to the reinforced concrete on the twentieth floor and it doesn't phase her.

Which is kind of cool.

Robin sees Marshall duck out to use the bathroom. She vaults through an open window and jams the outside of the stall closed with a chair. It might take Marshall a while to even realise he can't get out. Dude always did take way too long in the bathroom.

But anyway, who's going to hear him yell?

As she saunters across to the glass-walled conference room, Robin makes a decision. She's sated. She's horny. She definitely knows what she likes now and she can smell it all over him.

She's going to have sex with Barney and then she's going to bite him and drink his blood.

Love doesn't even come into it. Love has no business with a dead thing.

But when Robin reaches the conference room, it's dark. Not that the lack of light makes any difference to her eyes, but she can feel the recent warmth, smell the combination of scents - a tiny slither of drakkar, a hint of cuban cigar, a boatload of scotch. It confuses her senses so much that she doesn't feel the blow when it comes, jammed into her throat, but she feels the burn.

It's like her throat is on fire.

Robin staggers back, hands flying to her neck, clawing at the thing stuck to her skin, still hot as all hell, still a white-burning agony even as she rips it away. She can smell fried pork rinds and it makes her stomach roil.

Barney...

"You think I'm that green? Really?" He snorts. "Like I've never seen a vampire before?" He's trying to sound casual, but Robin can hear the slight tremor in his voice, the way his heartbeat speeds up, thud-thud, thud-thud. She's horribly aware of the adrenaline pumping through his veins, of how sweet the terror will make him taste.

She swallows down the bile in her throat, glancing down at the silver crucifix as it falls to the floor, decorated with the charred-black flecks of her own skin.

"There's a reason I go to church every Sunday and it's not to pray," Barney says, his tone a little more even.

Robin circles him, smiling. "I'm stronger than you, Barn," she says. "I can smell the stink of you. You want me right now…"

She sees him gulp in the darkness; his adam's apple bobs.

"Let's make a deal," he says.

She laughs out loud at that. Only Barney Stinson, she thinks. Only Barney could come face to face with a vampire and make out like it was just another day in the office.

"I'm faster than you," she tells him.

Slowly he draws a gun. "Silver bullets," he explains. "Faster than them?"

Robin shrugs and takes a seat in the chair at the head of the table, putting her feet up on the table. His eyes travel over her legs and she chuckles. "Ah, you're at a disadvantage." She strips off the argyle sweater, her blouse falling open to display plenty of cleavage.

"Dude..." He says with a smirk. "That's cheating."

"I play hardcore, remember?" She laughs, watching him blink as his human eyes slowly adjust to the darkness. "Come here..." She tells him, patting the desk.

He walks toward her, still holding the gun.

"What do you want?" She asks him.

He frowns. Maybe he hasn't thought it through? But once again she underestimates him.

"My blood, for yours," he says. "Quid pro Bro."

And Robin laughs. "Barney, has anyone ever told you that you're awesome."

He grins. Because of course they have. And he is.


	3. Blue

Robin ran her fingers through his hair, stroking his scalp. He was dimly aware of the sensation beyond the thud-thud-thud of the pain in his head.

"Hey there," she said, as he opened his eyes. All he could see was the pale skin of her throat, the blue vein that lay beneath, the rich prize that could be his. It filled his entire vision, those few inches of flesh, and when she pulled away from him he gasped a plea. She smiled, a kind-of happy smile, and she played with his hair again.

"Please," his lips formed the word but no sound came out. "Robin..."

He knew the he was dying.

Her face twisted, her features crumpling into ridges and whorls and there was an intense, agonising pain in his chest, like something sucking him down, slamming him into to the floor, like he was in freefall. At that moment Barney Stinson lost all his confidence. He wasn't sure that he wanted this. It wasn't eternal life she offered, he realised. It was eternal death.

But when the first drop of her blood fell between his lips, he reached out instinctively for the vampire and sucked hard at the newly-made gash in her wrist before it had a chance to close. The blood tasted thick and soft and meaty, like the finest steak-tartar, as he gulped it down.

And then, in the velvet-blue night, Barney Stinson died.

*--*--*

Days and nights passed. He had no concept of time where he was. When he awoke, he was trapped in a box full of stale air - air his lungs no longer required. He clawed his way through wood and dirt, his manicure split to ribbons against the iron-hard plant roots and top soil.

When he reached the surface, trembling and terrified, there was a full, fat moon in the skin, grinning down at him. Barney got to his feet, shakily, and stood, dressed in a white shirt and black dress pants.

Who in the /hell/ had buried him in a white shirt and black dress pants?

Who in the hell had buried him at all?

There was a gravestone. He peered at the inscription before staggering away. This was ridiculous. He didn't sign up for this! He didn't ask to be buried. Dead and buried. What he needed right now was a stiff drink, his friends and something warm to eat.

He felt so cold.

He felt so hungry.

And he would be planning to kill Robin right now, if she wasn't already dead.

He wondered just how many of the legends were true.

*--*--*

None of the regular gang were at MacLaren's. Even Wendy was missing. It was like walking into a different place entirely.

He ordered his usual but the scotch burned his throat. Then he tried a glass of shiraz but it tasted corked and vinegary. He got talking to a hottie, very young, very drunk, and he almost bit her there and then. But he couldn't drain someone's blood in front of people. He felt... weirdly inhibited, like he'd caught a mild form of The Yips. He was a vampire virgin who needed to take his first neck. But he had no idea how to go about it. Finally Barney looked up and Carl and just sighed. The bartender gave him and knowing look and tilted his head toward the storeroom out back. His eyes flashed golden.

Well, that was an unexpected development.

Barney wondered if Marshall would get some satisfaction if he knew he'd been right all along. He was just about to call him when he realised that no one had been considerate enough to bury him with his cell phone. So he turned to the drunk chick instead. "Hey... you wanna go somewhere more private? He asked her, his pressing his lips against the girl's neck. He licked the shell of her ear and felt her shiver through her jacket.

"Sure," she replied, her breath catching in the back of her throat as her skin flushed with arousal. Barney helped her off her stool, practically drooling, and lead her out of the bar before pushing her violently up against the wall.

It was messy, his first time.

He got blood all over his white shirt before his mouth covered the wounds his teeth had made. His face felt odd, pinched and painful. But the liquid nectar flowing over his tongue and down his throat - that was better than the best lapdance he'd ever had, better than the best hit of coke he'd ever snorted.

It was almost better than sex.

After, Carl tapped him on the shoulder and tossed him a fresh shirt.

Barney looked at him, nonplussed.

"Wow, all the years you dudes have been coming here and you never knew it was a demon bar?"

Barney shrugged. Why would they? But thinking about it, it did explain a whole lot. Like Doug, for instance.

"You okay, man?" Carl asked him, when he'd got dressed.

"Fresh out of the dirt," Barney explained with a groan. His stomach hurt, like he had acid indigestion.

Carl gave him a look. "Yeah. I get that. But Barney?"

Barney looked up at him questioningly. "Yep?"

"You ever kill one of my customers again, I'll stake you myself, entendido?"

Barney gulped and nodded. You didn't mess with a bartender, human or vampire.


End file.
